


Sunny Picnic with the Southern Pansy

by almaasi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anathema is literally the only character with a working brain, Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Ensemble Cast, First Kiss, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Insufferable Husbands, Jasmine Cottage (Good Omens), M/M, Matchmaker Anathema Device, Minor Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Minor Shadwell/Tracy, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Other, Pepper also has a brain but she's twelve, Picnics, Romance, Schmoop, Sharing a Bed, Surprise Party, Useless Genderless Entities, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, wait... I mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 04:17:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: As the one-year mark of the Unpocalypse approaches, Aziraphale pointedly mentions to Crowley that he'd like to spend the anniversary doing "something lovely" with "somebody special". Thus, Crowley secretly plans a surprise picnic in Tadfield with Anathema and the Them. Of course, this comes served with a plateful of misunderstandings, a side of moping, and a seasoning of mischief... eventually followed by a deliciously pleasant afternoon.





	Sunny Picnic with the Southern Pansy

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by _The Worst Witch_ episode 2x11 "Love at First Sight". Mostly just the bit about a forgotten anniversary and a bunch of kids making a love potion.
> 
> Mostly beta'd by [Katie](https://crab-full-of-rocks.tumblr.com/) and a bit by [Amara](https://sweetdreamspootypie.tumblr.com/)!

“It’s been a whole year!” Aziraphale realised. “Well, almost.”

Crowley looked away from the road, just as a stone bollard jumped out of the way and a traffic light spasmed back to green. His spine prickled with some kind of delight, realising Aziraphale had also kept count of the days since they’d moved in together. “Has it?”

“Since the Apocalypse.”

Crowley’s spike of delight melted down to a lump. “Oh. Right.” He pursed his lips and looked back to the road, driving over a roundabout. “Hadn’t noticed.”

“One whole year since we helped saved the world,” Aziraphale said happily, hands together on his stomach. “We ought to celebrate.”

“Hm. Okay? What do you have in mind?”

“Oh...” Aziraphale pondered. “I don’t know,” he said, with a leading tone that implied he knew very well what he had in mind. “I should like to spend the day doing... something lovely.” He looked over at Crowley. “With somebody special.”

Crowley flinched as he almost ran over an old lady’s dog, but relaxed when he didn’t. “Something lovely with somebody special. Got it. I’ll... mark the date on my calendar.”

Aziraphale beamed. “You’ll... plan it, will you? Surprise me.”

Crowley glanced over, lips parted, then looked back to the road. “Plan.” The full extent of his party-planning skills were limited to what he’d done for Warlock’s eleventh birthday, and besides the bits they’d miracled into existence, that entire setup had been stolen from the actual entertainers they’d replaced. He had no idea where to start. Hell, being the ultimate hub of antisocialism, never provided workshops on formulating successful social gatherings. The only thing Crowley was certain of was that there had to be balloons and cake. Crowley looked over at his angel friend, who peered back hopefully and expectantly.

Crowley made a small noise at the back of his throat, and found himself nodding. “Oh, why not. Sure, angel. Leave it to me.”

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


Someone knocked on the door of Jasmine Cottage.

Anathema sucked a sticky smudge of strawberry jam off the side of her hand, going to open the door. “Hey, kids, I made— Oh.” Anathema had come face-to-face with that tall, thin gothic demon with the angel boyfriend, except he stood on her porch alone. “You. Crow—? Crowley.”

“That’s me,” Crowley said, both proudly and guiltily. At least the sunglasses were appropriate, given the blinding summer blaze that had Anathema’s eyes watering. His immense golden aura wasn’t helping.

“Don’t tell me there’s another Apocalypse,” Anathema said guardedly.

“Oh... no... Not yet,” Crowley said, hands deep in his pockets. He swayed, head down, one heel scuffing the welcome mat, “I’m actually here for a social... thing.”

“Nice! Well, then, come in!” Anathema smiled and opened her door wide. “You hungry? I’m making jam sandwiches. The kid’s’ll be here at quarter-past.”

“Thanks, but I’m trying not to ruin my appetite,” Crowley said, looking around, keeping his arms close and his shoulders bowed, as if afraid to touch the narrow walls or the shelves of highly-practical magical instruments. He slouched after Anathema, following her into her kitchen. “Nice place,” he remarked. “Very... quaint.” He said it with a touch of ironic sarcasm, which made it sound like a genuine compliment.

“Thank you,” Anathema said. She paused, then gestured to a chair. “Is everything all right? Your boyf— husb— partnnnn— _friend_. Aziraphale. How are... they?”

Crowley turned the chair around and sat with his legs parted around the backrest. “Great. He’s just great. He’s... um.” Crowley swallowed, ducking his head. “Look, I’m here because I need a favour. For Aziraphale.”

“Oh?” Anathema pulled up Newt’s favourite chair and sat in it primly, elbows on the table, eyes on Crowley. “What sort of favour?”

“It’s coming up to our anniversary. Well, not _our_— The world’s. Everyone’s. Yours, and mine, and those kids. The one-year mark of—”

“Of when the world didn’t end, yeah,” Anathema grinned. “Big day.”

“The biggest,” Crowley agreed, pawing at his sharp chin. “Aziraphale wants to celebrate. And I figured... after last year, we’re all practically family now, aren’t we?”

Anathema forced a small smile, as she was of the opinion that family didn’t disappear from your life for a year and then come back to ask a favour, but, yes – she nodded – actually, maybe they did.

“And you’re special to Aziraphale, I know that much. You, and your gawkish boyfriend. Those spirited little ankle-biters. The Antichrist. The Witchfinder Sergeant and the... lady in the dress.”

Anathema had a growing suspicion that Crowley didn’t know a single one of their names.

“Anyhow, I just came here to ask... any chance you’d be willing to help me pull together a party? A get-together for the whole gang.”

“Of course!” Anathema brightened. “I’d been thinking about doing that myself.”

“Brilliant,” Crowley smiled, showing his teeth, crossing his forearms over the top of the chair. “So... here?”

“Tadfield? Where else?”

“How about a picnic?” Crowley suggested.

“Mm-hm.”

Crowley nodded. “Ah... okay. Good. S-s-sso... what do I... _do_... exactly?”

“Oh, leave it to me, I’ve done picnics a hundr—” Anathema looked up when she heard Adam chattering his way up the garden path. “Be right back.” She swept to the door in her long skirts, grinning as she found the Them on her porch, ready to knock. “Heyy, you lot. Come in. There’s somebody here you’ll remember.”

Crowley wore a comfortable smile when Anathema returned, and he gave the kids an up-nod. “‘Sup, guys.”

“It’s _you_,” Pepper said accusatorially.

“You look exactly the same,” said Adam, whose hair was cut more neatly at the sides than last year. “You’re even wearing the same clothes.”

Crowley looked down at himself. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Don’t you get hot in that?” Brian asked, fingertips plucking at the sweat stains under his arms. “It’s bloody _boiling_ out there.”

“Actually, they wear black in the desert,” Wensleydale said, poking his glasses up his nose, but they slipped back down on a sheen of sweat. “I suppose you’d get used to it.”

Crowley’s jaw moved, then he shrugged. “You’re all... taller.”

“I grew six inches overnight, actually,” Wensley said proudly. “It really hurt.”

“You didn’t grow six inches, you grew _one_ inch, and it took a week,” Pepper said, arms crossed. She uncrossed them to take the plate of sandwiches Anathema handed her.

“You kids take a seat,” Anathema offered with a smile. “Mr. Crowley here’s just been telling me he’d like to put together a special picnic party for all of us. Everyone who helped save the world.”

“Even Dog?” Adam asked, feeding Dog a sandwich.

Crowley pursed his lips and craned back in his chair to see the mutt. “Sure. He was there.”

Dog barked at Crowley, then started chasing his tail. He grabbed it in his mouth, and kept spinning.

“We hafta have ice-cream,” Brian said. “At the picnic.”

“I have a portable freezer box, we can do that,” Anathema said. She pulled a witchy-looking calendar off the wall and pored over it. “Seven days from now. Hmm. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“And a water gun fight,” Pepper said. “My mum got me an Ultra Triple Helix Super Soaker,” she added, purely for Crowley’s benefit.

Crowley clearly had little idea what manner of features came with an Ultra Triple Helix Super Soaker, but nodded appreciatively anyway.

“And bloons,” Wensley said.

“Yes! Bloons!” Brian agreed.

“Proper helium bloons, though,” Adam said, and the others nodded reverentially. “Not just water bloons.”

Crowley mouthed ‘bloons’ to himself in silence, obviously perplexed. Anathema smiled.

“Balloons,” she said.

Crowley tipped back his head, mouth open, drawing a deep breath. “Right. Yes. I knew that.”

“Better go light on the helium, though,” Anathema warned. “Once it’s all floated off into space we’re not getting it back.”

“No bloons,” Brian said, plonking himself down on top of a wicker picnic basket, jam hands holding up his ice-cream chin. “No more bloons, ever again.”

“No more MRI scanners,” Anathema pointed out. “Which is obviously _way_ less important than balloons that float, but still.”

“_I_ think it’s a good thing.” Pepper put down her sandwich crusts, and Wensleydale reached for them. “People shouldn’t be letting their bloons float off and suffocate all the fish and turtles, that’s what I say.”

Crowley looked between them all, looking a little fish-like himself, what with the bobbing bottom lip. “How the heck did you run out of helium?” he asked, hands spread. “It’s literally the second most _abundant_ element in the universe. I put billions of tons of it in every star I made, and every star was designed to _explode_ new elements across all of space. And you humans burned through the majority of the Earth’s supply, what, two hundred years? Less?”

“What can I say,” Anathema smiled grimly. “You helped save a planet of people who very quickly forget that there’s generations who’ll come after them, who have to survive the mess they left behind.”

“No bloons,” Brian said again, sullenly.

Crowley drew a breath. “Look. Um. Lovely as this is, I told Aziraphale I’d be back from the petrol station in time for dinner, and,” he glanced at his high-tech wristwatch, “it’s gonna take me half an hour to get back to Soho and he likes to have an appetiser before the play starts, so—”

“That’s an hour-and-forty-minute journey with light traffic,” Anathema said, parroting something Newt mentioned once. Anathema didn’t drive, so she wasn’t sure. “Here to Central London?”

Crowley glanced at her. “Not for me.” He stood up, turning the chair around and offering it to Adam, who immediately gave it to Dog.

“Are you married?” Pepper asked.

Crowley took a moment to realise he was being addressed. “What?”

“You and your angel friend.”

Crowley’s mouth opened. “Aaaaaaaaaa,” he said, and continued to say for a number of seconds.

“You can’t ask gay people that,” Wensley said in a half-whisper. “It’s homophobic.”

Anathema started to laugh, but said, seriously, “Honey, I don’t think that’s how it works—”

“He’s not _gay_,” Pepper argued. “He’s a demon, which is an angel, and angels are genderless. And you’re only gay if you’re a man. Or a lesbian.”

Crowley tried to point knowingly at Pepper, but just trembled instead. “I— We, um. It isn’t— Angel and mmmm. Ngk.” He sat down again, in a way that suggested he’d forgotten he stood up. Meaning, he sat on top of Dog. Dog barked and leapt away.

“Except,” Adam said, while inspecting Anathema’s calendar, “If his angel boyfriend is also genderless, than that means they’re the same gender, which _is_ gay.”

Anathema was getting a little nervous, eyes darting between the kids and the blank-faced Crowley. “But that all relies on one fact, sweetie, and none of that can be true if Mr. Crowley here isn’t, actually – you know – _involved_ with his angel friend. I’m so sorry for all this,” Anathema breathed to Crowley. “They’re kids. You know how it is. No filter.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine, no problem,” Crowley said hastily. He smiled, ducked his head, and smiled more. “Www.” He cleared his throat. “We’re not... married.”

“But you are in love, right?” Adam looked up from the calendar. “It’s obvious.”

Crowley seemed to be blushing, but stared Adam down with unshakable confidence. “What gives you that idea?”

“I can feel it.” Adam stared back at Crowley with equal force. “When you think about him or mention him, there’s a wobble in the air around you, and it feels like love. The gross, gooey kind I feel when Mum and Dad start snuggling on the sofa. It was the same last year when I saw you together.”

Anathema smiled to herself, turning her head away so nobody saw. She’d sensed it too, _waves_ of it, the moment she’d stepped into their car a year ago, but hadn’t been sure what it was, or why she felt it, until she’d stepped out again and felt its absence.

Crowley wore a soft, soppy smile now. He didn’t seem to react beyond that.

“You had an appointment to get to,” Anathema reminded him.

Crowley took a few seconds to register her voice. “Hm?” He glanced at her. “Oh. OH! Yes.” He stood up, checking his watch. “Dinner at a new restaurant. Made reservations. West End theatre after. _Phantom of the Opera_. Then drinks back at home.”

“Sounds like a nice date,” Anathema tried, standing up to escort her guest to the door.

Crowley smiled. “I think he’ll like it.”

“Well, good luck,” Anathema said, patting his arm as he stepped out, golden aura only separated from the sunlight by the darkness of his clothes. “I’ll take care of the picnic. Oh— Here.” She ran back inside, plucked out one of Newt’s defunct business cards from a milk jug, and ran back to Crowley. “Our number’s on there. Call me if you think of anything else you need. In fact, just call me, so I can call back and double-check about your specifications.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Crowley said, pocketing the card. “Needn’t be complicated. People can arrive mid-afternoon, sayyy... three o’clock? Mingle for a bit, then head out to find a good picnic spot. Have some sandwiches, some cold drinks, a frilly parasol for the shade. A salt shaker. A... bloon or two.” He smirked. “Something lovely with somebody special. That’s all he wants.”

Anathema touched her heart, honoured Aziraphale thought of them all that way.

“Ah— Money. You need money.”

Crowley dug in his jacket pocket, but Anathema placed her hand over his, refusing the thick wad of hundred-pound notes he offered. “Oh, no, no, it’s my pleasure,” Anathema said warmly. “Really. I would’ve done this myself, but I had no idea how to contact you. I’ve got the whole thing covered.” She didn’t mention that she was a multi-millionaire heiress, but then again, she rarely did. “Go on.”

Crowley smiled gratefully. “Thank you... Aaana...”

“Anathema,” Anathema offered.

“I knew that,” Crowley said. “Anathema. Hm. Good name.”

“_Anathemaaaa_?” came a call from inside the house. “_Where’s the chocolaaaate?_”

Anathema smiled. “Gotta go.”

Crowley nodded. “Me too.” He hesitated, then started away, hips swaying. His vintage car waited outside in the lane, waves of heat wriggling over its black roof.

“Give Aziraphale my love!” Anathema called.

Crowley twisted on the garden path. “Wuh...? Right. I’ll... do my best. Rather keep this a surprise, though.” He saluted, then went on his way.

Anathema smiled after him, then closed the door.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“So!” Aziraphale settled into the Bentley’s passenger seat with an excited wiggle. “Where are we going?”

Crowley shrugged carelessly. “Dunno.”

Aziraphale’s eyes snapped to the view ahead as the Bentley pulled into the road. “No plans?”

Crowley shrugged again. “Hm. Not really.”

Aziraphale felt a flush of panic. He was _sure_ he’d reminded Crowley about the upcoming anniversary. Today was the day. Had he forgotten?

“Not even a secret plan?” Aziraphale asked with a smile.

Crowley snorted. “Me, keep secrets from you? Puh. Can’t even hide a new pair of _socks_.”

“They weren’t socks, Crowley, they were stockings, and if you were going to put them in the wash then you should’ve told me they needed a different setting.”

A fond smile curled up Crowley’s face.

Aziraphale admired that smile, then glanced down, face neutral. “So we’re really not going anywhere in particular?”

“Mm. Nah.”

“Not doing anything special?”

“Always special when I’m with you, angel,” Crowley said with a head-sway towards the passenger side, which made Aziraphale’s heart flutter, but he quickly pursed his lips and cleared his throat and pretended not to have heard.

They sat for a while, driving nowhere fast, listening to Depeche Mode’s _Never Let Me Down Again_ on repeat, as the CD single was just on the cusp of becoming Queen’s Greatest Hits, and they wanted to get as much use out of it as possible.

Aziraphale tried not to feel disappointed. After racking up six thousand years of memories, having a mental capacity not especially bigger than a human’s, Crowley couldn’t be expected to remember everything. It was enough that he remembered to put the bins out every Thursday, on top of remembering which day was Thursday. Aziraphale sulked, but sulked inwardly, unwilling to let Crowley sense he was upset.

It was only when Aziraphale looked out of the window and spotted a signpost for Oxford that he started to suspect they might actually be going Somewhere.

“Tadfield,” he said, quietly.

“What’s that, angel? Tadfield?” Crowley pursed his lips and squinted behind his sunglasses. “Ohh,” he croaked, thoughtfully. “Yeeeah, that isn’t too far from here, is it? Somewhere in this direction, in any case.”

Aziraphale sighed. So this really was just a random drive. Crowley took them out for random drives, sometimes. They’d zoom around and end up at Brighton beach, or catching a spontaneous orchestral performance, or just driving around London, talking about nothing and sightseeing for a few hours. True, it _was_ special. The experience was always enjoyable. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. But Aziraphale had really hoped for something... more. At least today.

He surreptitiously checked the back seat for a picnic basket, just in case Crowley was purposefully misleading him. But all that was in the back seat was a tangle of too-small stockings that they hadn’t decided what to do with yet. Damn.

“Hey... here’s an idea,” Crowley said. “How about we pop in and see how that little village is looking now? Wouldn’t hang around too long, though, obviously you’d want to get back to your bookshop. But...?” He looked over curiously.

Aziraphale looked back. “Could be interesting, I suppose.”

Crowley changed gear. “Tadfield it is, then.” He stomped the pedal and they tore up the road on their way.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“Are we going via the scenic route?” Aziraphale asked.

“There’s only one main road in and out of Tadfield, angel. If you like warehouses and university blocks, sure, that could be scenic.”

Aziraphale tapped his thumbs together in frustration, peering out of the window. At least there were trees by the road. “Are we going to a new restaurant?”

“A restaurant? In Tadfield? Pff.” Crowley smashed through a toll barrier, which reformed in one piece behind them. “I think the best they have is a bakery.”

“Ooh, are we going there?”

“Ehh. They’re probably closed.”

Aziraphale’s mouth pressed into an angry line. “Well, then, what’s the point? What’s in Tadfield, Crowley? What are we going to do, circle the village square and head out again?”

“Why does it matter?” Crowley drawled. “Thought we were just enjoying each other’s company.”

“Well— _Yes_, but—” Aziraphale twinged with guilt, wishing he could be as easily satisfied as he usually was. “But today was _special_,” he couldn’t help but whine. “It’s our _anniversary_, Crowley. We saved the world, one year ago today.”

“_Is_ it?” Crowley looked surprised. “My-my-my. Completely slipped my mind.”

“Oh, _Crow_ley,” Aziraphale grumped, lurching his face away, arms folded. “I did remind you. Last week. This week. _Yesterday_.”

“Ohhh, is _that_ what you meant by ‘get your bare feet off the coffee table, you disgusting monster with no manners whatsoever’?”

“Ho-ho! Yes! Obviously that’s _exactly_ what I meant.”

Crowley snorted. “No need to get tetchy, angel.”

“I’ll get as tetchy as I like, Crowley. Granted, I don’t expect you to remember everything, but _that_? The Apocalypse?! We both almost died. We saved each other’s _lives_, and _everyone’s_ lives, and we—” Aziraphale stopped talking, sucking his inner cheeks, glaring at cattle through the snatches of open hedgeway.

“We what?” Crowley asked softly.

“We moved in together,” Aziraphale said sulkily. “Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal for you, but for me, after six thousand years alone, Crowley, it was... it was quite a big step for me.” He looked over at Crowley, sadly. “I’ll say it, Crowley! I’m upset you forgot.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t you _huh_ me,” Aziraphale complained, turning away again. “You said you’d plan a celebration, and you haven’t. I’m starting to wonder if I was _right_ all these years, and demons aren’t to be trusted.”

“You can trust me, angel.”

“Oh, can I? After you made me a promise and didn’t keep it?”

“It’s just a party, Aziraphale. It’s not the end of the world.”

Okay.

That?

That particular remark was enough to _sting_. Tears leapt into Aziraphale’s eyes, and he wailed, “But it _was_ the end of the world, and it was the most important moment in our entire lives, and for once, for _once_, I wanted to do something – something amazing, Crowley, something you thought would _celebrate_ how we survived – how we beat the odds, how we played Heaven and Hell for suckers, and we found a safe place together, away from it all, away from the Great Plan, and made our own lives, started over, started anew, and spent such a _beautiful_, happy year together, Crowley, I—” Aziraphale drew in a wet, shaking breath, and turned away, sniffing hard and pushing tears off his cheeks. “Don’t talk to me.”

“B-But... angel...”

“I said DON’T.” Aziraphale sat sideways in the seat so Crowley could only see his back. “I’m too angry at you.”

“Angel, come on, you don’t understand, I—”

“Crowley, I don’t care for your excuses, not one iota. Just drive the car.”

“But I did actually—”

“Crowley, one more word, and I’m teleporting out of here and back to Soho.”

Crowley said nothing.

He said nothing for another ten minutes...

...At which point they pulled up outside Jasmine Cottage. Crowley got out of the car as the bonnet ticked, went to Aziraphale’s door, opened it for him, and gestured him out.

Aziraphale glanced out at the sun-baked hedgerows and heard the buzz of bees among the wildflowers. Butterflies hurried past, twirling two and two, and going off together.

“What are we doing here?” Aziraphale asked, tentatively taking Crowley’s hand and getting out of the car. “Does Miss Device know we’re here?”

“Who’s Miss Device?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale shut his eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Do you even know where you’ve parked?”

“Somewhere nobody’s going to rear-end me, I hope,” Crowley said, looking both ways up the crooked road.

“Crowley, you really are the most hopeless, _useless_, irritating, in_sufferable_ creature I’ve ever had the absolute misfortune to—”

“Hiii?” came a sweet voice.

Aziraphale and Crowley peered over the hedge of Jasmine Cottage.

Anathema waved from the porch, wearing a long blue skirt and a frilly blouse, her dark hair bundled up atop her head. “Aw, hey, you two! You coming in or what?”

Aziraphale fretted. “Were you... expecting us?”

Anathema laughed, one hand shielding her eyes from the blinding sun. “I don’t expect anything these days. Just take life as it happens. Come on inside, you’ll fry to a crisp out here. There’s lemonade! Made it myself.”

She turned and went inside. There were two balloons tied to either side of the porch, one white, one gold, bobbing in the gentle breeze.

Aziraphale looked at Crowley.

“Now look,” Aziraphale said, shoving a finger at Crowley’s chest. “You’ve gotten lucky. She’s not only a witch, but a descendant of Agnes Nutter, so clearly she has enough common sense to be prepared for any eventuality. There’s balloons, so I have to assume _she_ remembered what day it is, and is acting accordingly. But don’t think I’ve in any way forgiven you. In fact I’m very, very cross with you, and I think I might be for some time. So for your own sake, Crowley, and for the sake of our friendship, I’d highly suggest you keep to yourself this afternoon. I don’t feel like making conversation. Understood?”

Crowley opened his mouth, no doubt to offer another lie, so Aziraphale covered his lips with a single finger.

“_Understood?_” he demanded.

Crowley nodded, thoroughly chastised.

“Good.” Aziraphale turned. He felt a strong pang of despair flood from Crowley, but Crowley no doubt felt Aziraphale’s bolt of anger and upset, too, so at least they knew where the other stood. Aziraphale entered the open door of the cottage alone, putting on a cheerful smile. “Hallo,” he said, taking Anathema by both hands. “How are you.”

“Just great— Crowley?” Anathema craned to try and see outside.

“He’s just calming down,” Aziraphale said. “We had a little tiff in the car. He’ll be along soon enough.”

“Oh, shit...” Anathema looked worried. “Are you both okay?”

“Oh yes! Quite all right.” Azriaphale managed a tense smile. His eyes went to the dining table, which was piled with cake and biscuits and jugs and jugs of cold, iced drinks. “Oh, I say! Having a party, are we?”

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of friends arriving soon,” Anathema said with a smile. “And Newt’ll be home from work. You were the first.”

“Dear me, I hope we won’t be intruding,” Aziraphale worried. “We can be off if we’ll be in the way.”

“What?! Don’t be silly!” Anathema looked astounded. “You’re completely welcome to stay. Both of you. Honestly.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Terribly kind of you. You know, I’d really hoped for a little celebration myself. Very special day, and all.”

“Isn’t it?” Anathema grinned, going to pick up a tumbler to fill with a drink. “Lemonade or orange punch?”

“Lemonade, please,” Aziraphale said. “Thank you kindly.”

“And for you?” Anathema glanced behind Aziraphale.

Crowley had slunk in, looking sheepish and small. “Got anything stronger?”

“Um...?” Anathema glanced towards the fridge, then the top kitchen cupboard. “Brandy?”

“Glass of that,” Crowley said. “To the brim.”

Aziraphale tutted.

Crowley went to skulk in a corner.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“_Told_ you she’d do bloons,” Adam said, marching into Jasmine Cottage with the rest of the Them behind him. “Didn’t need helium anyway, they float by themselves when it’s a bit windy.”

“Hey,” Brian said, spotting Crowley leaning against a wall, nose in a glass of what looked like apple juice. “Why’s your face like that?”

“Yeah,” Pepper said, eyebrows rising as she saw Crowley’s pout. “Not allowed to be sad at parties.”

“I’m not sad,” Crowley retorted, sadly.

“Actually you are,” Wensley said.

“They’re right,” Adam said, as Dog padded up to Crowley and sniffed his not-actually-snakeskin shoes. “You’re bringing the whole vibe down.”

“Oh, so sorry,” Crowley snarled, showing his teeth. “How dare my broken heart mess with the _vibe_.”

Adam looked around. “Where’s your angel?”

Crowley looked sadder, drooping into his glass. “Upstairs with _Miss Device_. Apparently there’s a pile of books she’s been saving all year for him.”

“That’s cool,” Wensley said, picking up a yellow cheese square, biting it, then putting it back so he could try an orange one. “My mum collects books.”

Crowley sniffed, head down, quickly swiping a hand under his sunglasses, maybe to brush away a tear before it fell.

“You should sit down,” Adam said, as Pepper pulled back a chair from the table. “We’re trained in Psychology.”

“But you’re like, twelve,” Crowley said, sitting down, putting down his drink.

“Thirteen now,” Brian said.

“I’m eleven, actually,” Wensley said.

“We read most of a Psychology book,” Adam explained. “We’re experts at _empathetic listening_.”

Crowley smiled a little. “Look... you’re smart little bastards, I’ll give you that. But I don’t think your baby brains can even comprehend the tip of the iceberg here. I’m lugging around six thousand years of emotional baggage, not counting the bit before linear time was a thing.”

“Try us,” Pepper said, folding her arms and glaring. “We have faster brains than you, you’re ancient.”

Crowley cocked his head in acknowledgement. “Um.” He swallowed, thumbing at his glass. Then he sighed, slowly, and began, “It— It’s not even that Aziraphale thinks I forgot about today being an important milestone. It’s not that. It’s—” Crowley tipped back his head, throat long, letting out a pained breath. “Hhhhng.” His chin jutted forward again. “I just hate that he’s mad at me. I... I hate it. My whole world just...” his lips trembled, “falls apart. Nothing _matters_ any more. But everything matters too much. And it’s my fault this time, it wasn’t some random misunderstanding we can piece together and have a laugh about later. ‘Cause, thing is, he always used to think I lied to him all the time, ‘cause I’m a demon, and that’s just what I do. But I don’t! I really don’t. And... he’s starting to trust me. This year he’s trusted me more and more and more, and the thing is – the thing is – I _was_ lying to him, saying I didn’t have plans today, and the worst God-damned part is that he _believed me_. For maybe the first time ever, Aziraphale believed I was telling the truth when I was lying. I didn’t realise how bad it would feel. I haven’t lied in _so_ long, but this time I did, because the party was a surprise, and— And, and—” Crowley mewled in distress and sloshed back a sip of his drink. He sniffed, wiping at his eyes again. “At this point it doesn’t even _matter_ about my intentions, does it, or why we’re all here. Because I did actually lie. And whether it’s for that reason or not, he is actually upset with me. And he won’t talk to me now, so I can’t even explain.”

“I hate when Mum does that,” Brian said, as a blob of mustard dropped off his cheese and onto his t-shirt. “Not talking to me to punish me.”

“N-no, it’s not like that,” Crowley said breathily. “He’s not punishing me. He’s just upset, and talking to me upsets him more. Like I said, he just needs to cool off. I can explain everything later. He’ll understand. It was all about the picnic, that’s all! It’s fine. I just need to wait. Few hours, right? Everyone will be here, we’ll go have our picnic, and he’ll realise I planned this for him.”

The Them were unsure about that, exchanging uncertain glances.

“_—Really am very grateful, this was such a generous gesture—_”

Crowley sat up straighter, pulling out of his sad slouch as he heard Aziraphale coming down the stairs. Anathema replied to him with a warm tone, and Aziraphale chuckled.

“Now, let’s see where— Oh, hello,” Aziraphale chirped. “Cottage full of children all of a sudden. Goodness, how you’ve grown. Adam, hello again! Wensleydale, mighty fine to see you. Pepper – looking as tough as ever, I see. And Brian.” Aziraphale looked a tad uncomfortable, seeing the stains down Brian’s shirt. “Hope you’re... having a good time.”

“Muh bughf,” Brian said, chewing.

“Quite,” Aziraphale managed.

Adam’s eyes snapped between Aziraphale and Crowley, and his brow furrowed.

“I was just going to take Aziraphale on a tour around the garden,” Anathema said to Crowley. “Do you want to come?”

“Hng.”

“Aziraphale says you’re a big fan of plants,” Anathema went on. “You might be interested in the herbiary.”

“Mmh.”

“I could give you a cutting of my mandrake, even,” Anathema offered. “They make amazing houseplants. And burglar alarms, if you don’t mind deaf, maybe dead burglars.”

Crowley got to his feet. “Lead the way.”

Anathema shot Adam a playful smile, then a wink, then led the angel and demon outside.

The moment they were out of the cottage, Adam huddled up with his friends, whispering urgently, “Something’s wrong. Crowley’s not just sad, it’s the angel too. That gross, gooey love thing isn’t the same as before.”

“I thought you couldn’t see auras,” Pepper said.

“It’s not an aura... It’s more like an emotion. And I can’t _see_ it, exactly, I feel it. I know it was soft before, and now it’s all... spiky.”

“Do you think Aziraphale’s fallen out of love?” Wensley asked. “Mum said people do that sometimes. That’s why they get divorced.”

“Bummer,” Pepper said.

“We have to save their relationship,” Adam said. “We have to.”

The Them agreed. Crowley and Aziraphale were the first maybe-gay couple they’d met, so they were very protective. The fact the pair were immortal entities with supernatural powers was rather less interesting.

Pepper scrunched her lips to one side. “Aziraphale’s just mad because he thinks Crowley forgot about today. Yeah. He prob’ly thinks Anathema planned all of this herself, and they came here by mistake, ‘cause they did everything by mistake last time, too. If we told Aziraphale that Crowley planned a picnic then it’ll be fixed. Easy.”

“But that would spoil the surprise,” Wensley said. “You’re not meant to spoil surprises, it’s an Unwritten Rule.”

“But the picnic’s happening in less than an hour anyway,” Adam said, checking the clock. “We could just wait. And Aziraphale will realise.”

“Yeah, but it’s meant to be special for them,” Pepper said. “It’s a date, isn’t it? Anathema went to all this trouble because Crowley wants to be nice to Aziraphale. Because they’re in love. But if they’re still fighting in an hour then it’s all ruined.”

“So we need to stop them fighting,” Adam said. He knew he was creeping up on a solution. However, he and his friends had done enough Psychology on people to realise that making people Talk About Their Feelings often didn’t help at all, made them angry, and the Them would quickly be banished and scolded for Invading People’s Privacy. If they were going to fix the problem quickly enough to make the picnic a pleasant experience for all, they had to overlook the human sciences, and instead turn to the Occult. “We need a magic potion.”

The Them gasped in near-unison, then clamoured in agreement.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“Ah! A delightful selection of pansies,” Aziraphale said, cupping a flower in his palm, admiring a purple one, then letting it go. “Very nice. Very nice indeed.”

Crowley trudged along behind Aziraphale, looking at Anathema’s barrel-planted garden pansies as they passed. Crowley’s heart ached, and the pansies died, plopped down into the soil, burned and blackened. Heartbroken at the sight of what he’d done, Crowley looked away, far away.

He saw a moped approaching with two riders.

“Incoming,” he uttered to Anathema.

“Oh, _no_, did they drive that thing all the way from London? You’ve got to be joking,” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Must’ve taken all day.” He paused, blinking. “H-Hang on. What are _they_ doing _here_?”

“Uh, they’ve come for the party?” Anathema said, looking at Aziraphale like she was confused and amused that he’d asked. “Big anniversary, remember? Everyone’s invited.”

Aziraphale’s baffled gaze skipped to Crowley. “We were... invited...?” Crowley tried not to look back, or seem too sad. A shaken breath fluttered out of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Oh...”

He happened to catch sight of the expired pansies in their soil-filled wine barrel, and his eyebrows rose.

He reached out and snapped his fingers, and the pansies popped back to their former vibrancy. Crowley looked at them, then looked at his angel – and their eyes met, separated only by the shade of Crowley’s sunglasses and three feet of stodgy summer air.

Aziraphale drew a breath. “Come along, my dear, there’s still that mandrake to see.”

Crowley felt a firework of hope explode in his belly.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“Eye of newt, tail of bat,” Pepper said spookily, stirring their cooking pot with a wooden spoon. “Leg of frog, hair of cat...”

“Does saying those things actually help, or does it just sound cool?” Brian asked, wiping ketchup down his shirt – ketchup which had served as the blood of a virgin tomato, because Wensley didn’t know what an actual virgin was yet and nobody wanted to tell him.

“Of course it helps,” Pepper said. “Eye of newt, leg of—”

“I beg your pardon?” The Them looked up at Newton Pulsifer, who’d just come home from work and was undoing his tie. “What’s happening to my eyes now?”

“Not _your_ eyes, Newt,” Pepper said. “We used fish fingers as newts. We couldn’t find eyeballs but if you put the whole newt in, its eyes are in there somewhere.”

Newt stared. “That is... sound logic.”

“And there was cat hair on my shorts,” Wensley said. “So we put that in too.”

“Frog legs are French so we put half a bagel in,” Brian said, while eating the other half of the bagel.

“Baguette, you mean,” Newt said.

The children looked at him.

“No,” Brian said. “Bagel.”

Newt smiled, poking his glasses further up his nose. “I really hope Anathema didn’t leave you in charge of the picnic.”

“SSHHHHH!” came the hissed response.

Adam explained, in the careful tones of a well-informed person tasked with educating a lesser being, “It’s a _surprise_. Aziraphale doesn’t know about the P-I-C-N-I-C.”

“But he can spell,” Newt said, frowning.

“So can we,” Pepper said haughtily. “And that’s what we’re doing. Magic spells, see. It’s a love potion. We’re gonna give it to Aziraphale and he’ll fall back in love with Crowley.”

“_Back_ in love?” came a soft, warbly voice. Madame Tracy entered the kitchen with flamboyant red hair, fluttery eyelashes, and a concerned look on her gently-wrinkled face. “Did they have another falling out? I did _tell_ Aziraphale not to be so _hard_ on Crowley about leaving feathers clogging the shower drain. He does groom himself twice as often these days, something I said Aziraphale ought to try sometime. A little self-care does wonders for romance. Not to mention self-esteem.”

“Crowley and Aziraphale are having relationship problems, Miss Tracy,” Adam said, making Madame Tracy smile and touch her heart in shock at the same time. “We’ve got to fix it before their date in less than an hour.”

Newt shook his head and retreated. “I’m going to get changed. I’ll leave you lot to your toil and trouble, shall I?”

“What I want to know, loves,” Madame Tracy said, peering into the bubbling pot as Adam put in a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce for the all-important _heat_, “is whether you plan to tell the recipient of this oh-so-delightful potion what its intended purpose is.”

“If we told Aziraphale we were trying to make him fall in love again, he wouldn’t touch it,” Adam said. “And not just because of the cat hair.”

“Ah, yes,” Tracy said knowingly, “but that’s the point, dear. If he doesn’t want to fall in love, it’s a very unkind thing to make him. Love potions should only be drunk with the explicit consent of all relevant parties.”

The Them found this intriguing but worrying.

“Besides,” Tracy said, rolling up the sleeves on her flowy, tasseled robe, “what I’ve found, in my own years of occult-adjacent experiences, is that – well – people tend to find a magic potion works better when you explain what it’s supposed to do. Sometimes it _only_ works if you explain.”

“Hmm,” Wensley said, fingers boxed around his chin.

“We should test it on Crowley first,” Adam said. “Because he already knows we’re on his side. We’ll figure out how to convince Aziraphale to take some once we’re sure it works.”

“A very good compromise, dears,” Madame Tracy said. She reached into the pot, scooped out a fingerful, and sucked it off her finger. “Hm! Needs salt, loves. And a spot of gravy.”

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


Aziraphale sat alone on Anathema’s garden bench, sun scalding the backs of his ears, hands on his lap, eyes staring at grass but seeing nothing. He was concerned. Guilty. Worried. His stomach was doing hopeful flips, but he had to assure it each time that it was surely overreacting.

Crowley was currently taking mandrake cuttings with Anathema, and Aziraphale had just needed time to think, so he’d excused himself.

Crowley _had_ had a plan all along. It seemed almost obvious now, after the fact. It had been a surprise gathering, and Aziraphale had gotten upset over nothing. People were _supposed_ to lie and pretend they didn’t know about surprises, otherwise it wouldn’t be a very good surprise.

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell was pacing on the garden path, uttering obscenities about the fact he was being asked to enter the home of a self-confessed witch and was under strict instructions not to stab, prick, burn, dunk, or insult her in any way. This was unacceptable to him, but upon being offered a tea with condensed milk and nine sugars by that very respectable-looking woman in a blue skirt, he cheered up immensely, and wandered inside, telling the young lady how kind it was to invite him here.

The worst part, Aziraphale thought, was that he’d been so _cold_ to Crowley, he’d felt ice wafting off himself and pointing spikily in Crowley’s direction. And poor Crowley had been innocent all along. He hadn’t forgotten. Nor had he lied, not really. Just... misled, with the best intentions.

Aziraphale tried very hard not to let his lip wobble. He didn’t know where to _begin_ apologising. It was usually Crowley who had to say sorry, and Aziraphale was out of practise.

“You doing okay?” Anathema asked a few minutes later, an elegant wisp of blue coming into Aziraphale’s orbit.

Aziraphale binked out his reverie, looking helplessly at Anathema. “Oh... So-so.”

Anathema smiled gently and sat beside him, hand over his. “You need to talk?”

Aziraphale shook his head, but drew a breath, and confessed, “This is all my fault, isn’t it?”

“Ohhh, no, honey, don’t do that to yourself,” Anathema said, squeezing his bigger hand. “These things happen in relationships. I can’t tell you how many stupid fights me and Newt have had since we met. In hindsight, I promise you, if the relationship is strong enough, it’s all ephemera.”

“But it is, though, it is my fault,” Aziraphale insisted. “I told him—” He huffed, then looked desperately at Anathema. “I told him I wanted to spend this anniversary doing ‘something lovely’ with ‘somebody special’. I asked him to surprise me.”

Anathema smiled widely. “And he did! We’re all here, sweetheart. He didn’t let you down. This is exactly what you wanted.” She gazed at Aziraphale’s downturned eyes for a bit. “...Isn’t it?”

Aziraphale struggled to respond – his thoughts were tangled up like the stockings in Bentley’s back seat, and his body was afraid to move, lest he give himself away.

“It isn’t,” Anathema realised. “You wanted something else. Not us. Not _all_ of us...” She tilted her head. “Just him?

Aziraphale lowered his chin to his sternum. “Please don’t think I don’t care for your company. It really is most enlightening.” He gave her a warm, genuine smile. “It’s just, the thing is... Today...”

“It’s the anniversary of you two,” Anathema realised. “One year ago was when everything—”

“Changed forever,” Aziraphale finished. “After we left Tadfield I... I went home with him. And I... I don’t know, I just—”

“Never left?”

Aziraphale’s eyes gleamed as he smiled, looking into his past rather than at Anathema. He saw his own uncertain smile, and Crowley’s dewy eyes, the pair of them together on Crowley’s couch the night after the Apocalypse, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and holding hands for comfort. They had a bright idea and swapped bodies, carefully mimicking each other’s scents, then swapped back the next evening, and dined at the Ritz... Soon it was them assembling a second bed in Crowley’s bedroom, piles of old books amassing on Crowley’s desk, concrete walls adorned with ancient tapestries, the floors covered in rugs, lampshades and blankets popping up here and there, then the shower plug stuffed with black feathers as Crowley started grooming more often, Crowley’s houseplants growing with even more verdance under Aziraphale’s angelic ministrations, and less and less of Crowley’s misdirected angst...

“I never left,” Aziraphale echoed. He exhaled through his nose, head lowering. “I thought he was planning a special outing today. Something private. Just us.”

“A date?”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed hot. “I suppose that might be a... semi-accurate term.”

“Accuracy is in my blood,” Anathema joked, making Aziraphale chuckle.

“Anyway,” Aziraphale said. “Can’t be helped now. I feel so horribly selfish for wanting anything else besides this. If he planned this gathering...” Aziraphale saw Anathema nod and his heart dropped to his stomach. “Gosh, I feel a right fool. He’s brought the old Apocalypse-averting family back together. You’re very dear to me, all of you.” He gave Anathema’s hand a squeeze from on top. “I’m grateful to spend time with you, of course I am. Please, if you could... find it in your heart to forgive all the time and energy I’ve wasted moping around out here. I do hope mine and Crowley’s silly little spat didn’t upset anyone.”

Anathema was too kind to say yes it had, but she didn’t say no, just smiled, which gave Aziraphale his answer.

He sighed. “I hardly know what to do now.”

“Tell you what,” Anathema said with a sparkle in her eyes, a wry smile wrinkling the bridge of her nose and shifting her dark constellation of freckles, “I think we can still get you what you really want.”

“Oh?”

“You and Crowley alone? Can’t be too hard. How about...” Anathema bit her lip as she smiled, eyes drifting to the door of her cottage. “How about we pack... a picnic. Sandwiches and cake and ice-cream. Enough for everyone, so Crowley doesn’t suspect it’s a date. But then...?” She tilted her head, grinning at Aziraphale. “I’m sure you and him could find a quiet part of the field.”

Enlivened, Aziraphale said, “You _are_ a bright young thing, aren’t you?”

“My mom thinks so,” Anathema said humbly.

Aziraphale cooed at the back of his throat. “If you’re serious? Then yes. Please. A thousand times yes. I would absolutely love that. A nice picnic with Crowley.” He rolled his eyes slightly. “Not least so I can apologise to him for being such an ass.”

They headed inside into the comfort of the shade, only to find the Them very hurriedly and secretively pouring some kind of lumpy red soup into a jam jar, whispering between themselves and shooting Aziraphale nervous glances.

The kids were off out of the house within thirty seconds. With an affectionate tut, Anathema passed by the stove to turn off the heat and put the used cooking instruments in the sink.

“What were _they_ up to, I wonder,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Better not to ask, I find,” Anathema said lightly. She smiled and led Aziraphale across the now-abandoned kitchen, opening up the fridge. “Oh, would you look at that,” Anathema grinned. “Enough sandwiches for everyone.”

Aziraphale had lifted the wicker picnic basket onto a chair, and now looked into the fridge, seeing about fifty stacked sandwiches, all cut into triangles. “Big fan of sandwiches, are you?”

“Oh yes,” Anathema said firmly, but with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Love to share, though.”

Aziraphale beamed. “In that case, I’m sure there’s enough room in this basket for all of them, this thing’s practically a trunk. The ice-cream might melt in here, however...”

By the time Aziraphale had finished that sentence, Anathema had put a blue insulated plastic box with a chunky white handle on the next chair along.

“You really are prepared for anything, aren’t you?”

Anathema gave a lilting smile and a tiny hum, then went to the freezer part of the fridge and collected up all the ice lollies and single-serve blocks she had in there.

“Mustn’t forget the salt and pepper,” Aziraphale said, before finding salt and pepper already in the picnic basket, as well as mustard. “Or napkins— Oop! Found them.”

Anathema winked at him.

Quietly, with a slow grin, Aziraphale had the _deeply_ satisfying realisation that everything was completely under control.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


The toilet flushed behind Crowley, and he turned away from Anathema’s bathroom mirror to see Pepper striding out from the second door. They made eye contact, but Pepper barged past and uttered, “‘Scuse me,” and Crowley side-stepped so she could wash her hands in the sink.

Once her hands were dry, she lingered, looking at Crowley’s reflection as he patted a bit more glitter sheen onto his eyelids.

“Nice makeup,” Pepper said.

Crowley glanced down at Pepper’s reflection. “Thank you,” he said, with a small amount of surprise. “Figured I should still act like I’m making an effort, and all that. Even if Zira’s got his stockings in a right twist.”

“Hm.” Pepper watched for a while, as Crowley finger-smudged the fine gold shimmer up towards his already-pomaded eyebrows.

Crowley caught the girl’s eyes again. “You want to try some?” He offered the tiny tub of glitter to the child.

Pepper drew her head back, offended. “No thanks.”

Crowley pouted, curious. “Why not?”

Pepper folded her arms, glowering at Crowley defiantly. “_While_ I believe makeup is genderless, it’s definitely for _other_ girls.”

Crowley capped the glitter, pocketed it, then turned to look directly at Pepper, with her dark skin and poofy hair and half-hooded eyes, looking just as careless as Crowley always tried to look. But Crowley started to smirk, realising he and this very small, very young girl had a few things in common. Namely: they both cared more than they let on.

“Why can’t it be for you, too?” Crowley asked, resting his palms and butt on the edge of the sink. “Why do _other_ people get to have all the fun?”

Pepper snorted. “It’s not _fun_. Makeup is a product of the capitalism-driven patriarchy, marketed and sold to women who’ve been conditioned by society to believe they’re not beautiful without it.”

Crowley opened his mouth, turning his head. “Yeeeah, but...”

Pepper raised her eyebrows, waiting for a decent argument.

“But _I’m_ not a woman,” Crowley tried. “At least not at the moment.” He folded his arms to mirror Pepper, and asked, “Seriously, what’s wrong with a bit of snazz? Everyone loves glitter.”

“_I_ don’t,” Pepper argued. “Assuming everyone loves glitter, especially little _girls_ – _that’s_ just sexist.”

Crowley pressed his lips together and breathed out through his nose. “So... you don’t like glitter... because it’s... girly?”

“_No_, because people _expect_ me to like glitter _because_ I’m a _girl_.”

“But you don’t actually _dislike_ glitter, do you?” Crowley realised. “You reject it because you reject everything commonly associated with... with femininity.”

Pepper almost had a retort ready, but lost it when she opened her mouth. She stared. “What?”

“You’re the ultimate feminist, right?” When Pepper nodded and said she tried to be, Crowley asked, “So what does that mean for you, exactly?”

“Dismantling the power structures that put people in boxes and oppress them. If society thinks I, as a twelve-year-old girl, _should_ like something, then I don’t, as a matter of principle.”

Crowley nodded slowly, then sniffed in a breath and pointed out, “But doesn’t automatically rejecting twelve-year-old-girl-y things mean you’re actually just repressing yourself further by not allowing yourself to try something you might like?”

Pepper frowned, eyes drifting to the side as she thought about it.

Crowley crouched down, looking up at Pepper. “Listen. You’re doing great at the ‘screw the rules’ thing. Good for you. But here’s a tip, kid, from someone who already burned the rules to the ground: fuck the rebellion too. Just do whatever the hell you want and damn the rest. Let people love whatever they love, and protect the people who need protecting, and there’s your feminism for you.”

Pepper was taken aback. “Aren’t you a demon? Why should I listen to _you_?”

Crowley pursed his lips and cocked his head quickly. “Feel free to resist my charms. It would be in keeping with my advice if you did. But I’ll tell you right now, there’s thing called ‘overcompensation’. And you, Pippin ‘Pepper’ Galadriel Moonchild, are an expert.” He stood up, patted Pepper on the shoulder, then swept past her for the door. “Look it up when you get home.”

“Wait.”

Crowley paused in the doorway. “Hm?”

Pepper hesitated, then said, tentatively, “Does the glitter show up on dark skin?”

Crowley grinned. “Better than it ever would on mine.”

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


“Come _on_, we’re running out of _time_,” Adam said, beckoning frantically to Pepper from across Anathema’s lawn. The Them had set up camp by the hedge, sitting cross-legged in the shade with a jar of red stuff between them.

“I’m _coming_, don’t boss me around,” Pepper retorted, dragging Crowley behind her, his lanky pale hand trapped in her firm brown grasp. “We still need him to consent.”

“Consent— What—” Crowley stumbled, hurrying after the girl, released only at the hedge. Pepper sat, pulling on Crowley’s tight jeans until he got the message and sat down too, working his thighs awkwardly until he could cross his legs. The denim’s tension on his knees made him realise why people cut slashes in their trousers.

“We’re going to fix your relationship with Aziraphale,” Adam announced, handing Crowley a slightly bent teaspoon with great ceremony. “The Them have created for you a majestic and important potion, which you must now drink in order to salvage what remains of your love.”

Crowley gaped. “Potion.”

“Here.” Pepper handed the jar to Crowley. It was warm. “You drink some, we say the magic words, and you’ll fall back in love with Aziraphale.”

“...Back,” Crowley croaked.

“We’re just testing that it works,” Brian explained. “If it works then we’ll get Aziraphale to try it too, and then you’ll be in love again.”

“Hnn.”

“Go on.” Pepper gave Crowley an elbow nudge. “Eye of newt—”

“Actually, that’s fish fingers,” Wensleydale said.

“Tail of bat, leg of frog, hair of cat—”

“There’s cat-chup and cat-hair and a bagel in there. And T’basco. But actually it’s mostly pasta sauce.”

Crowley looked at the jar, tipping it slightly so the red gloop moved – then he twitched when a half-defrosted fish finger went _blup_ against the glass. “And this... This’ll fix everything, will it?” He looked at Adam, and only Adam.

Adam nodded, convinced.

Crowley drew a breath. “Alright—?” he said worriedly. He unscrewed the jar lid, took a sniff – recoiled, realising his mistake – then decided it wasn’t too bad, because it smelled like tomato soup. Gingerly, he dipped in his teaspoon, and lifted out a scoop of the potion.

He lifted the potion halfway to his lips... and hesitated, worrying very specifically about the cat hair, but then set aside his disgust, because Pepper looked so hopeful, and Adam looked so intense, and Brian looked hungry, and Wensleydale looked back and forth between them all, then looked expectant. Crowley never liked to disappoint children.

Crowley shut his eyes and gulped down his spoonful of potion.

“Blehkh.” Crowley shoved the jar at Brian. He flicked his tongue out a few times – “bleblehblehbl—” then supposed it was decently tasty. He noticed a small salty kick and the richness of gravy. He swallowed, then stuck his tongue out one more time and pried a cat hair off the tip and wiped it on the grass.

“Well?” Pepper urged. Her eyes were locked on Crowley’s, able to make eye contact even through the sunglasses. “Did it work?”

Crowley hummed. He looked down at his palm, curling his fingers. “Don’t feel any different.”

“Think about Aziraphale,” Adam commanded.

Crowley did. He thought about Aziraphale pulling all of Crowley’s wet, shrunken stockings out of the wash and fretting for half an hour, pacing the flat, before confessing his mistake to Crowley and almost working himself to tears over something that just made Crowley laugh – “_Pffffft! Look how cute they are, angel. Stockings for snakes! Hah!_” and Aziraphale flustering before relaxing into a smile, and laughing too, and helping Crowley hang all the tiny stockings up to drip-dry over the bath.

“The potion worked,” Adam said proudly. “You’re even more in love than my mum when she’s had wine and my dad says something nice.”

“Yeah!” The Them exchanged high-fives, congratulating themselves on a magical endeavour well-executed. They’d come a long way on the subject of witchcraft since the time of the British Inquisition.

Crowley smiled. He didn’t think the potion had done anything but make his tongue burn, but if the kids were happy, he was happy. Yet his smile faded, and he sighed. He turned his head and gazed longingly towards the cottage, as he could hear Aziraphale’s cheerful tones echoing out from the hallway as he conversed with Tracy and Anathema.

“What, what’s wrong _now_?” Adam asked.

Crowley glanced at the former Antichrist, then shrugged, head down, fingers plucking at a daisy in the lawn. “Thing is,” he started, “he’s already on his way to forgiving me. He probably doesn’t even _need_ a love potion. Shadwell and Tracy arrived and he realised we were all here on purpose. So he knows why I lied. He figured out I didn’t forget. He’s... he’s not pissed off at me any more. If I know him at all, he’s working his way up to making an apology as we speak.”

“So then, what’s the problem?” Pepper asked, as the sun caught the gold glitter on her eyelids and it glowed.

Crowley drew a deep breath, chin rising, eyes lifting to the clear blue sky. “I think mmmaybe this whole thing was a mistake. The party. The picnic.” He looked away fast and rasped deflectively, “Ackh, I don’t know.”

“How can a _picnic_ be a mistake?” Brian asked, as if he were an astronaut who’d just been told outer space didn’t exist.

Crowley pushed his shoulders to his ears. “Not the picnic, exactly. More the way I invited... everyone. I want you guys here, obviously. And he loves you too, wants to spend time with you. But... eh. This day was kind of like a... mr-rrh-r-uh. R-ruhromantic milestone, maybe. For me and him. We moved in together this time last year.”

“Ohhhh,” Pepper said, nodding sagely. “He wanted to put a sock on the door.”

Crowley blushed. “Sssssssssomething along those lines. We’re, um, not quite that far along yet.”

Pepper folded her arms, looking airily disdainful. “And you screwed up,” she sighed at Crowley.

“Yeah, I screwed up.” Crowley lowered his head and covered the nape of his neck with both hands.

Wensley leaned closer to Brian and whispered, “What’s a sock on the door for?”

Brian murmured back, “I think it’s so they don’t have babies accidentally.”

Crowley snorted with laughter, but levelled his smile before he lifted his head. “I suppose all isn’t lost, though, is it? Even after the picnic’s over, the day goes on. Can take him out to dinner. Visit the planetarium or something.”

Adam tilted his head. “So you’re saying the problem is that... he wanted to spend time with you _alone_, so you can be all gooey and gross.”

Crowley’s head wobbled noncommittally – but then it committed, and he nodded.

Adam exchanged a look with Pepper, and Pepper started to smirk. Adam grinned back, then – without warning – all four kids got up and ran away, huddling together on the other side of the garden. They parried back and forth like sports players devising emergency gameplay tactics. Plan formulated, they hurtled inside, calling for Anathema. They dragged her out to the porch (away from Aziraphale, presumably), and Adam pulled her down to whisper, one hand cupped to her ear. Anathema began to smile. She nodded agreeably, then gave them an instruction and went inside. Brian and Wensley followed, while Adam and Pepper ran off to the back of the cottage without another look back.

Crowley blinked. “I’ll just... sit here then, shall I?”

Almost in response, Aziraphale emerged from Jasmine Cottage, calling to Crowley, “Dear! Come on in and grab a basket! We’re going on a _picnic_!”

Crowley clambered to his feet. “Picnic?”

“Picnic!” Aziraphale looked delighted.

Crowley grinned back, ambling across the grass towards Aziraphale with his usual seductive sway. “So! How’d you like my big surprise, angel?”

Aziraphale looked Crowley up and down. “You don’t _look_ very surprised.”

“What?”

“...Pardon?”

Crowley and Aziraphale blinked at each other, each suspecting there’d been a missed memo somewhere.

Both were distracted as Shadwell came trudging out of the cottage, a glass jug of lemonade in both hands with aluminum foil over the top, grumbling, “Outta my way, ya great southern pansy. And ye, ye flash bastard. Verrr imporan’ lemonade to delivah!”

“Do be careful, love,” Tracy called from the porch, carrying an armful of transparent tupperware boxes full of cupcakes and muffins, and biscuits and cookies, and chips and crisps – which were all different things depending on whether Aziraphale or Anathema were to describe them. There were also scones, Crowley noted, which were pronounced wrong no matter what anyone said.

“Can you believe we put this together in fifteen minutes?” Aziraphale marvelled, as Newt came past carrying a flower vase of cutlery under one arm and the cooler box under the other. “Not that I’d ever doubt it, but Miss Device really is Ms. Nutter’s equal in terms of foresight. She truly goes above and beyond.”

“She does, at that,” Crowley agreed, taking a massive picnic basket, which Brian handed him before running back inside. “I said give me sandwiches, but—” he weighed the basket with a few bouncing lifts of his arm, “how many did she make, a hundred?”

“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale accepted the dirty brown blanket Brain gave him, which was a clean tartan blanket by the time the boy crossed the cottage threshold. Aziraphale was still peering speculatively at Crowley. “Did you say _you_ requested the sandwiches?”

“Yeah? For the surprise picnic.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley for a bit. Then he kept looking. He didn’t even notice Wensleydale giving him a portable radio, shoving it into his free hand and forcibly curling his fingers around the handle.

“Alright, that’s everything,” Anathema said as she strolled out into the sunshine, four full-size umbrellas under her arm. She called into the house, “Everyone out?” When there was no answer, she turned to lock the front door.

Dog scampered around ankles, barking, then following Adam and Pepper, who between them were carrying a great plastic trough of plump, wobbling water balloons from the back of the garden. Four neon-coloured water pistols rested atop them. One was obviously superior, and Crowley had to assume it was Pepper’s.

“Wish we had a catapult for the bloons,” Brian said, as the group followed after Anathema, all with their hands full. “Could really launch these buggers, then. Something that goes _ping_.”

Aziraphale exclaimed, “Oh!”

He shoved the picnic blanket at Crowley, who went “oof”, but clutched the blanket so it didn’t fall. Aziraphale was already trotting towards the Bentley.

“Angel?!” Crowley called after him, as a flush of panic overtook him. “Nonono, please, don’t leave – whatever I said, I’m sorry! I’m a stupid snake-brain, I know! Please— Please, come back!” His distress wilted a nearby vine.

The whole congregation glanced back and forth between Crowley and Aziraphale, their faces pinched with sympathy. Adam looked confused. Anathema rolled her eyes.

Aziraphale dived into the Bentley’s back seat, and, to Crowley’s immense surprise – and jubilation – he came back happy as a daffodil, holding the tangle of stockings and remarking, with perfect joviality, “They’re likely not what you had in mind, master Brian, but I’m sure you could find your way to making them work as water balloon launchers.” He placed the black nylon in with the water balloons.

“Aw, thanks, Mr. Aziraphale, you’re the best,” Brian said.

Aziraphale looked fluffier, somehow. He came back to Crowley’s side and took back the blanket. “Now,” Aziraphale said, “I heard you shout something, dear, what was it?”

Crowley gazed at him, heart afloat. The vine behind him bloomed in rainbows. “Nothing,” he said, lovingly.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


Tadfield Common was a green, well-mown meadow five minutes’ walk from Jasmine Cottage, just as everything else was in Tadfield. Its sloping edges faded into orchards, into hedges, back gardens, and the cricket ground, or just rolled on for miles to the east, off the edge of the Tadfield map. There were young-ish trees here and there across the Common, providing shade, and a snaking pale-dirt path that wound through it all, making it a perfect place for a Dog walk, an imaginative adventure... or a picnic.

Anathema led the way, four closed umbrellas slung over her shoulders, long skirt brushing the tips of the grass stalks as she swept across the field, ignoring the paths. She heard the chatter of the group behind her.

“Din’na expect to be lugging this great jug araend for miles an’ miles, did I, lass? Would’a brought me somethin’ lighter.”

“I’ll swap with you, love, you can take the cakes and such,” Tracy said, only to hear a splutter.

“I can carry me _aen_ lemonade, ye daft bat! An’ would someone tell that southern pansy back there to quit lookin’ googly-eyed at the demon bastard and find a good place to put that blanket a’ his already sae we can all _sit daen_.”

Newt passed on the message. “So sorry to distract you, Mr. Aziraphale, but Mr. Shadwell would quite like to sit down now, please.”

“Hah! Private Pulsifer, I said nothin’ of the sort! Yer twistin’ me words!”

“Oh— Oh, yes, we’d better,” Aziraphale said in a fluster. Anathema turned to look over her shoulder just in time to see him hasten away from being pressed directly to Crowley’s side. Crowley almost fell over once contact was released, wobbling on one foot but quickly steadying himself, using the picnic basket as a counterweight.

Aziraphale rotated the folded blanket – which, Anathema noticed, was a different size, texture, shape and pattern than she remembered – and eventually handed the corners to the kids, who stopped chasing Dog and calmed down enough to spread the blanket out.

“Left a bit! Left a bit!” Aziraphale urged, directing them towards the shade of a tree where the ground was flattest. “Aaaaand, down!”

A breeze immediately tried to steal the blanket, so Pepper jumped on it, and Crowley dumped the picnic basket on a corner to weigh it down. Aziraphale put the radio down on the grass, and miraculously tuned it to play jaunty summertime instrumentals nobody had heard since 1950.

One by one, everyone deposited their offerings, and sat together in a circle around the edible shrine. Newt left space for Anathema beside him; Tracy surreptitiously shooed Brian along so she could be next to Shadwell – and Aziraphale and Crowley both pretended they sat together by accident, acting surprised that their thighs and elbows touched when they got comfortable. Crowley had a line of children to his left, with Pepper closest, smirking.

Anathema handed out umbrellas. Aziraphale got the pink one and was very pleased with it, opening it and hooking it over his shoulder, sheltering his and Crowley’s heads from the sun. Adam got the one with clouds on it, Shadwell got the black one (he complained, but refused to give it away), and Anathema kept her blue-and-white one closed, as she was in the shade of the tree.

“Okay!” she said with a smile. “What are we waiting for? Dig in!”

Crowley unbuckled the leather straps on the picnic basket and began handing out sandwiches, putting them on the plates given one-by-one to him by Tracy. The plates made their circular way around the group, bread slices pried apart to check the fillings, plates then swapped in zig-zags across the blanket. Cakes were added, crusts were cut off, whipped cream was shaken. Dog wriggled his way between Adam’s knee and Brian’s plate, licking both. Conversation initiated, and picked up as food went to mouths.

Anathema kept an eye on everyone, as a good hostess should, but she let much of her attention linger on Crowley and Aziraphale, as it was clear they’d been through something tricky and out the other side, and were both wary of upsetting the other again.

With one corner of a sandwich between her lips (Bovril and cucumber on buttered rye bread), Anathema watched Aziraphale’s mouth move around unmistakable words: “_I— I’m sorry, Crowley... for..._” Anathema didn’t catch everything he said, but he looked all dewy-eyed and soft-shouldered, leaning hopefully against Crowley as he spoke. “_I should’ve trusted you... I promise you... I’m so sorry, my dear... I treated you terribly..._”

Crowley just smiled at his own sandwiches, which he’d stacked white, then brown, then darkest rye – all filled with luncheon meat, lettuce, and mustard. “_Don’t worry about it, angel,_” he said, when Aziraphale was done. He glanced up, smiling, holding his friend’s eye. “_I still love you._”

Anathema grinned and stared harder.

Aziraphale seemed overjoyed, and he smiled tenderly, eyes gleaming. “_Oh,_” he breathed, head lolling slightly, his food long forgotten. “_Oh, Crowley, I..._”

Crowley shrugged, ducking his head.

Aziraphale reached for his hand, taking it. Crowley looked up again, hand sliding to hold Aziraphale’s properly.

Aziraphale’s adoring gaze dipped to Crowley’s lips.

Pepper whacked Adam on the arm and directed his attention.

Aziraphale took a while to think about it, his movements hesitating, clearly wanting to kiss Crowley but holding back. Anathema tried lowering her eyes, then hissing to Adam and reaching to poke his knee, giving the couple privacy. But Anathema stole one more guilty glance, and _ached_ when she saw Aziraphale swallow, head ducking, thumb stroking Crowley’s hand. The promise of a kiss had faded.

Yet, Crowley didn’t look disheartened, not one bit. If anything, judging by his aura, he was overwhelmed with an ongoing thrum of core-deep happiness, which flickered at his wonky smile and left him sucking his lower lip. Aziraphale _wanted_ to kiss him. Maybe this was further than they’d ever come before, and after thousands of years resisting each other (or so said Aziraphale, while examining books earlier), and, well... progress was progress.

Anathema and the Them shared knowing, secretive glances a few times in the fifteen minutes that followed. They had a plan to turn the group outing into a date, and they intended to carry it out.

Between Newt, Anathema, Tracy, Shadwell (what _was_ his first name?), Adam, Brian, Wensleydale, Pepper, and Crowley and Aziraphale, fifty triangular sandwiches were put away in a neat manner, as well as an assortment of salty snacks, sweet desserts, and homemade baked goods, leaving naught but crumbs and empty tupperware. Lemonade disappeared faster than the orange squash, but then the orange squash was gone too, and was washed down with plain, boring water.

Shadwell did not drink water.

“Aye! All thaese chemicals they put in to kill the dirt! Need a luttle dirt in our systems. The devil’s work, is plain water!”

“Oi,” said Crowley. “Tell that to the kids who’ve never seen clean water in their lives.”

Everyone noticed: Aziraphale fell in love with him a little bit more. They were still holding hands.

Newt put himself in charge of doling out the ice-cream, which proved to be a mistake, as he was a logical-minded soul and assumed things would be straightforward: if someone wanted vanilla, they could have vanilla. He had clearly forgotten that children wanted five kinds of everything and fought over what they’d chosen, Shadwell could be racist about dairy products, somehow, and it was just a fact of having limited supplies that there was never enough of the proper conical kind with the nuts on top to go around.

Crowley asked for a vanilla block, and Aziraphale asked for a strawberry lolly – and Anathema expected them to swap, but they didn’t. At least... not for five minutes. At that point they exchanged half-eaten, well-licked ice-creams and didn’t seem to think anything of it.

As her own coffee-flavoured cornet neared its mushy, perfect end, Anathema shot Adam one more glance. Adam caught her eyes and nodded, shoving the last of his cone into his mouth.

“C’monh,” he mumbled loudly to his friends. “We goppa go play warper bloons.”

Pepper was sucking melted chocolate out of the hole she’d bitten at the bottom of her own cone. “Hey, Miss Tracy, you wanna play too?”

“Me?” Tracy looked astonished. “Me, run around? Getting wet? Right after eating? In _these_ shoes, love?”

“You can take your shoes off,” Brian said. “It’s better that way anyway. As long as you don’t step on a bee.”

“But I do have bad knees, dear, and—”

“Newt!” Anathema announced, taking Newt’s hand, to his surprise. “Such a beautiful day, hm? Good time for a stroll to help the food go down? You can tell Mr. Shadwell all about that thing you were telling me about last night.”

Newt was confused. “You mean how advertising companies are spying on us using our mobile phones?”

“Aye!” Shadwell’s hair practically stood on end. “Always knew there was something fishy goin’ on with those flashy, possessed bricks. Ne’er had one meself, and fer good reason—!” He got to his feet with some difficulty and Newt’s help, and ambled off in a huff, already rambling about how they couldn’t have this conversation near other people, in case they were being bugged by the CIA, or Hell’s Legions of the Damned.

Wensleydale had finally finished his strawberry Mini Milk, and had read and processed the joke imprinted on the stick, then rolled the stick in a paper napkin, pocketed it – and was now ready to start playing with water balloons.

Pepper was up like a shot, making sure she got to her Ultra Triple Helix Super Soaker before anyone else did. “Prepare to die, rebel swine!” she yelled, sprinting away from the boys to make a stand on the top of a small hill. The rest of the Them armed themselves and found their own bases nearby, their excited shrieks and shouts coming through the summer air, softly muffled.

“Really don’t think I could manage that,” Tracy said, looking warily at the kids’ frantic, sugar-fuelled game. “Not with my knees.”

“You know, I actually have something for that,” Anathema suggested slyly. “Might help with the menopause symptoms too, come to think of it. Come on, I’ll show you. Let’s go somewhere quiet. There’s a bench in the shade over there.”

“Aah,” Tracy said, with a bewildered gratitude, helped to her feet by Anathema. “But if we go, love, Aziraphale and Crowley’ll be all on their own, and I wouldn’t want them to be lonely...”

Anathema had already led Tracy most of the way out of earshot. Smiling, she replied, “They’ve kept each other company for six thousand years, I think they can handle a few minutes without the rest of us.”

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


Aziraphale watched Anathema go, with a floaty feeling in his chest. Anathema looked back once, just to wink, and Aziraphale smiled at her.

Crowley was just licking up the red sheen from his lips, tossing the stick from his lolly into the basket which was now full of wrappers and foil and dirty plates and napkins. He looked up, then glanced around in surprise when he noticed everyone was gone. “Oh. Well then.” He looked at Aziraphale, who twirled his pink umbrella over his shoulder. “Just you and me, angel.”

“Seems so,” Aziraphale said, looking softly at Crowley’s cheeks. The music from the radio faded, leaving the immediate area quiet enough that they could hear each other’s breaths.

Crowley exhaled and leaned back, weight on his hands in the grass. “Hmm,” he purred, satisfied by the meal and the sun on his cheekbones. There was a sparkle of glitter just above the rim of his sunglasses, and – out of curiosity, Aziraphale reached to lift his sunglasses away.

Crowley let him. He looked over, snake eyes dipping to Aziraphale’s mouth, then back to his eyes.

Aziraphale folded up the sunglasses, admiring the glitter Crowley had put on, twinkling bright in the sun. “It looks _very_ pretty, my dear.”

“Hm.” Crowley rolled a shoulder bashfully. “Was savin’ it for a special occasion.”

Aziraphale’s smile grew, warming his insides. “Today is very special, isn’t it?”

“So special,” Crowley agreed. He sat forward, arms around his crooked knee, head turned towards Aziraphale. “Y-_You’re_ special. To me. The most special...”

“You needn’t overdo it, Crowley, I understood you the first time,” Aziraphale smiled. But when Crowley didn’t continue, Aziraphale said, innocently, “What— What was it you were going to say, my dear?”

Crowley bit his lip, grinning, running spread fingers back through his hair. “I... I, um. I’ve had a really good year.”

“Me too,” Aziraphale said, feeling his whole being soften like butter in the sun, all soft and golden and gooey inside and out. “The best year, actually.” He caught Crowley’s eyes, and said, with all the love he had: “Crowley, this year I’ve spent with you has been the happiest time of my entire life. Before _and_ after Eden.”

“Aw.” Crowley exhaled, tenderness in his smile, contentment in his eyes. “Same for me, angel,” he promised. “Easily.”

Aziraphale’s heart leapt. It was one thing for Aziraphale to be at his happiest now, finally free of Doubt, but it was another entirely for Crowley to have enjoyed himself more than ever before. After everything he’d lost and had taken from him when he Fell (well, not Fell – Sauntered Vaguely Downwards), he’d never hidden the fact he’d liked being an angel more. The amount of love he must feel towards Aziraphale had to be unimaginable, if spending a single year with him truly eclipsed _all_ that came before.

Then again... it wasn’t _wholly_ unimaginable.

Aziraphale’s gaze lowered to Crowley’s lips. As Crowley parted their red seam, Aziraphale no longer had to imagine.

He _wanted_ Aziraphale to kiss him.

Aziraphale flushed hot, turning his face away. His stomach was fluttering pleasantly, toes curling inside his shoes. He didn’t know why it was so terrifying to be so close and know they both wanted to try something as _human_ as a kiss.

After so many months deliberating, hoping and wondering and fantasising about it, Aziraphale was growing _desperate_. He wanted to shut his eyes and feel Crowley nosing against him, tingling with his breath, smothered by heat. But asking for it was too hard. Taking it was even harder.

With a regretful sigh, Aziraphale twirled his umbrella and looked into the distance, spying Anathema and Tracy sitting on a faraway park bench, chatting.

“Look,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale realised he wasn’t trying to start a conversation, but was pointing at the sky.

“Ha! It looks like a cat,” Aziraphale said, seeing the cloud Crowley had pointed out.

“Cat?!” Crowley tilted his head one way, then the other. “Pah. Looks like a crocodile to me.”

Aziraphale put away the umbrella so he could enjoy the clouds properly. He leaned back a bit, hands on his knees, wearing a small smile as the sun’s heat bled through layer by layer of his ancient overcoat, waistcoat, shirt, vest, until at last he felt the warmth on his skin, meeting the emotional warmth that thrummed from within.

“Piano,” Crowley said, lifting a hand out of the grass, pointing with indents lining his palm. “Hmm, baby grand.”

“Gramophone,” Aziraphale said ten seconds later, when the cloud morphed. The sky was such a gloriously deep blue, and each of the clouds blazed as bold as the sun itself, white and pompous.

“Asparagus in a bunch. Or maybe it’s flowers.”

Aziraphale chuckled, leaning back to lie down. There was enough of the picnic blanket behind him that he wouldn’t stain his coat; Crowley was the one who’d chosen to sit right at the edge, so he was prickled by grass stalks when he lay back too, pressed to Aziraphale’s left.

Their shoulders touched, thighs close enough to share heat. The sun in Aziraphale’s eyes was blinding, in the most pleasant, uplifting way. The blaze of it set old shadows to shame inside him, changing the way he’d look at the world for weeks to come.

From down here he could smell the scrumptious aroma of the greenest grass, the crumbs from the picnic, the faint whiff of baked-dry earth and the occasional nectar-sweetness of bumblebees fussing with daisies and clover. But most inviting of all was that oh-so-familiar scent of his best friend, indescribably wholesome on its own, but layered with the fruity cologne he only wore in summer – the topmost note of his scent, of course, being strawberry, as the ice-cream residue lingered on his lips.

Oh, those lips.

Aziraphale quietly came to the realisation that he was no longer looking at the clouds, but something just as beautiful and mysterious and ever-changing, yet ever-the-same. Crowley’s yellow gaze flitted across the sky, a happy little light in his eyes.

“Castle with a pointy turret,” Crowley said. “But could just as easily be a weird hat.”

A kiss should have been meaningless to creatures of angelic stock. But... that wasn’t what they were any more. They were practically people now. Magical people, full of love and soul-deep desires to give and show affection in new ways they hadn’t before. It wasn’t something that came naturally to either of them – however, like the uptick in recent wing-grooming, and the urge to buy and install a washing machine, and wear physical stockings instead of magically-manifested ones, it was something they’d grown to want, maybe out of a morbid curiosity about human domesticity, maybe out of a desire to distance themselves from the beings they once were and the lives they once had.

“Another cat,” Crowley said, nosing towards a part of the sky above the nearby tree. “Hm! This one’s a proper doorstop.”

Aziraphale smiled, sparing the cat cloud a glance. “Does look very cuddly.”

Crowley breathed in, then out. Then he cast his eyes to look at the side of Aziraphale’s face, admiring him as Aziraphale resisted looking back.

“_We_ should get a cat,” Crowley said. “A really affectionate cat.”

Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled. “Whatever for?”

Crowley shrugged. He looked at the sky again. “I dunno. Just... Cuddles.”

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley’s lips, then back to the mighty blue. “Cuddles?”

“Mm.”

Aziraphale blinked, suddenly not really seeing the clouds. How could they be so close to each other, yet so far from what they wanted? Crowley didn’t want a cat. Or maybe he did, but he wanted something else more.

“Crowley, for goodness’ sake, just—” Aziraphale reached down and plucked Crowley’s arm from where it rested, lifting it, then lifting his own head and tucking Crowley’s arm under his neck like a pillow. Aziraphale bumped his head along it a few times, shifting his hips closer, moving his legs – then he relaxed, sighing in contentment.

Crowley stared. His arm had been draped around Aziraphale’s shoulders, hand still held. Aziraphale’s body was all squished up to his side.

Aziraphale tried not to blush or look at Crowley, but his eyes hopped bit-by-bit towards him anyway, until they gazed at each other from mere inches away, exhaling against each other’s chests, able to see each eyelash and, inevitably, the pleasant shade of a shared blush.

The smile on Crowley’s face was so subtle, so small, so gentle. But it spoke volumes on his satisfaction.

They held each other’s gaze for a long time. Slow blinks, no thoughts. Aziraphale’s head was full of pink candy floss and nothing else.

Crowley was the first to let his eyes wander, and they roamed in one direction: down. He was interested in Aziraphale’s lips, and the sight of his plump pout stirred enough feeling inside him that Aziraphale saw him blush again, the tip of his tongue poking out to put a shine on his own thin lips.

Being looked at like that felt so exciting that Aziraphale’s impossible heart jumped inside him, hitting his throat with every beat. His thumb stroked Crowley’s where their hands remained in contact; its intention was self-soothing, but obviously Crowley felt it. Perhaps he took the stroke as encouragement, because he nosed an inch closer, eyes half-closed, craning...

Aziraphale’s body rushed with those pretty, dancing feelings he’d once been afraid of, but now embraced – whether out of weakness or strength, he didn’t know. His lips parted, he drew a breath—

Their eyes met. The line of Crowley’s pupils, despite slimming in the brilliance of the sun, now shivered wider with the force of his desire. Aziraphale found his free hand had lifted of its own accord to caress Crowley’s jaw, thumb moving to stroke his sideburn, over the snake tattoo. The want inside Aziraphale seemed to thump in him, urging him to move closer, closer, to shut his eyes and give himself over to this darkness drenched in sun. But they held each other’s stare for a little longer, smiling in fits and starts like the uncertain wings of a butterfly, flashes of white, over and over and over until the wait became too much to bear and they fell into each other, Crowley breathing out hard against Aziraphale’s cheek, Aziraphale opening his mouth, head turned, both hands now grasping Crowley’s cheeks – for control over the kiss, or reassurance, or both.

Crowley rolled over properly, kneeling beside Aziraphale, laying his middle across Aziraphale’s shuddering chest so their noses could nudge, jaws could press; breaths escaped hot and sweet against each other’s lips. Crowley broke their first kiss to exhale what felt like humid fire against the bridge of Aziraphale’s nose, heads together, eyes shut.

Barely a moment passed before Crowley took a second kiss, a gentle touch of his hand snaking up into Aziraphale’s hair. Aziraphale rocked his jaw with the rhythm of their kisses, a soft moan of relief sounding from somewhere deep within.

“Crowleyyhh,” he groaned, lips smooched to the side before plucking back into place, kiss breaking.

...Alright, one more kiss. Just a soft one, with no form, but a nudge full of intention.

Overwhelmed by it all, they took trembling breaths in, eased out in calming ways.

Crowley remained close, peering into Aziraphale’s eyes. A fire had been lit in the back of Crowley’s gaze. Aziraphale saw it, and did not fear it. He just smiled, tilting his head into the picnic blanket, asking, his voice a faint rasp, “So, is _that_ how it is?”

Crowley chuckled, head bowed, resting his forehead on Aziraphale’s cheek. His eyelashes tickled there – then he rose up, moving to touch a thumb to Aziraphale’s now-sensitive lips, stroking them softly, letting them go. “That’s exactly how it is, angel,” he said, more sweetly than any demon had ever said anything.

Aziraphale couldn’t stop smiling. He held Crowley’s eyes as Crowley settled back once more, jostling close, his head now resting on Aziraphale’s arm instead of the other way around. They pretended to turn their attention to the clouds, but whenever they sensed the other wasn’t looking, they stole the briefest glance, overjoyed to see a smile there on newly-kissed lips, wrinkled beside sun-lit eyes, and glittering outwards from their ethereal essences in ways no human could comprehend. Anathema and Adam might have gotten a good sense of what it was, and other angels and demons might have observed it and made assumptions, but only Aziraphale and Crowley knew what it truly _meant_.

Soon Aziraphale let his eyes shut, feeling just right with his best friend under his arm, with their family around, children hurling water balloons across the Common with old stockings used as slingshots; Newt and Shadwell’s voices drifted on the breeze from wherever they were, and Anathema’s laugh came past in the same manner, bright as a bell.

“Going to sleep?” Crowley murmured against Aziraphale’s temple, lips sticking, stubble scratching.

“Hmm... no...” Aziraphale dragged in a deep, filling breath, then let it go. “Just enjoying this.”

He felt Crowley smile against him. Then came a soft kiss, audible as a _t’k_.

Crowley shut his eyes too, nuzzling close.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


There were some sunsets that came at the end of long, hot afternoons that felt like a loss, like they came too soon, like the hours of daylight were spent so well that it could only be a waste to have them end. Sunsets like those once left Crowley with a consumptive sadness inside, because those were evenings where he went home alone, without Aziraphale, to an empty flat with nobody but traumatised houseplants for company.

Then, there were sunsets like this.

Pinks and purples hung in the sky, embracing a gorgeous, flowing well of tangerine orange at the horizon. Tadfield’s leafy-treed, tile-roofed, tall-chimneyed silhouette just tickled the base of the sinking prism. Specks of illumination bloomed amidst the darkness of the village, as people’s lights came on in upstairs windows.

Hoots and hollers of happy children still echoed in the air, as the Them chased Dog across Anathema’s lawn, no limit to their energy.

The heat lingered.

From inside Jasmine Cottage there spilled a surge of orange, pouring from the propped-open front door. The chatter of voices came out indistinct but clearly happy in tone; the clinks of coffee cups and teaspoons and wine glasses made up the high notes of a conversational orchestra.

Crowley’s silhouette slunk out from inside, wearing a smile like no other he’d worn before. His thumbs were hooked in the pockets of his jeans, his jacket lapels flared out, caught behind his elbows. He walked with his head down, his steps jaunty and swooping, his footsteps all but silent on the path.

“No, really, thank you again,” Aziraphale said, emerging from the door of the cottage, patting Anathema’s hand as he went. “This was _ab_solutely perfect.”

“You’ll call, won’t you?” Anathema asked, handing over the hemp bag of the books she’d been saving, and Crowley’s mandrake cutting. “Keep in contact?”

“Of course! Oh, of course,” Aziraphale promised, gushing with affection and he and Anathema pressed into a brief hug. “I gave Newton my e-mail address, you could message me that way.”

“I might just do that,” Anathema grinned. She turned to the Them and lifted a hand. “Hey, kids! Crowley and Aziraphale are leaving, do you want to—”

She didn’t need to finish, as there came a great stampede, all four kids rushing to Aziraphale and breathlessly saying thank-you-for-the-stockings, only for the angel to smile and look up, eyes set on Crowley as he said, “You ought to be thanking Crowley here. They were his, after all.”

Crowley ambled back towards the cottage, grinning helplessly. Pepper lingered near him – and for lack of something to say, Crowley patted her head.

“_Get_ off,” Pepper said, smacking Crowley away. But she was smiling, and she leaned in, hugging Crowley’s waist with one arm. Crowley beamed, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“This was great,” Brian said, with ten different stains on his clothes and five more on his face. “Really, really great.”

“Actually, it was marvellous,” Wensleydale said, with the same lighthearted conviction he gave to every statement.

“You’ll be back soon, won’t you,” Adam said to Crowley and Aziraphale. It was neither a question nor a command, but it was also both.

“Count on it,” Crowley said, smirking. He made his way past the kids and nudged up to Aziraphale. “Won’t we, angel?”

Aziraphale’s gaze flicked up, settled on Crowley, looking at him as he started to nod. “I can’t think of a more worthwhile thing to do, can you?”

Crowley smirked, then smirked more. “Can think of a couple things. But a picnic with this lot? Mm, it’s up there. Top three.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes fondly. “Today was the most fun he’s ever had,” Aziraphale told Anathema. “He just doesn’t want to admit to it.”

“Seriously?” Pepper scoffed. “I don’t think he liked today just because of _us_.”

“Well, Madame Tracy, and Mr. Shadwell, and Mr. Pulsifer too, of course—”

“No-oo! _You_, stupid,” Pepper grinned up at Aziraphale. “Snogging _you_ and holding your hand all afternoon.”

“Kind’ff hard not to notish,” Brian said, busy sucking an ice-cream stain off his shirt.

“You _were_ pretty obvious,” Adam said smugly.

“Actually, you really were,” Wensley said.

Aziraphale flustered, making soft, bashful noises and looking at his feet.

“Ohh, don’t worry, he knows,” Crowley simpered, one hand on Aziraphale’s back. “He just wouldn’t wanna admit to it.”

He and Aziraphale locked eyes, Aziraphale happily embarrassed, while Crowley was too damn elated to feel anything else.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, glancing at the smiling Anathema, then the kids, “it seems Crowley and I have some thank-yous to impart. I’ve heard tell – although this is just hearsay among the adults, of course – there was some sort of magical love potion that came into play today.”

Crowley smiled, looking away to watch the last of the orange fade behind the trees. A lilac twilight coated the village in its warm bubble, hugging at every inch of him, inside and out.

“I never had the privilege of trying it myself,” Aziraphale said, “and I cannot vouch for its effects working on Crowley – but I can say for certain that I am, at this moment in time, feeling more _loved_ than I ever have in my life.” He spoke softly, with a tight wobble in his voice that drew Crowley’s attention and made his heart skip. “And for that,” he looked at each of the children in turn, “I am grateful beyond _words_.”

Two seconds later, he had four determined children hugging him at once.

Five more seconds later, Crowley was yanked in by his scarf and aggressively included.

Anathema tipped back her head and laughed with her hands on her stomach, then reached for Adam’s head of curls. Adam grinned, took her hand, and pulled her in too.

Five more seconds passed, then Shadwell came out of the cottage, uttering, “Wha’ss all thus then? Me and the Hoor of Babylon trapped in this witch’s den all night? Outta my way, ye wee menaces. Ahh-o-?”

Shadwell was also hugged. He spat out the start of several complaints, but became teary-eyed, and grumbled a resentful acceptance of his fate, smiling.

“Oh, my! Room for one more?” Tracy asked, appearing in the doorway. She leaned back into the cottage. “Coo-ee, Mr. Pulsifer!”

“Hello?” Newt peered out, then his eyes lit up, hurrying into the huddle and laughing when he was engulfed. He and Crowley accidentally bumped heads and grunted, but chuckled after.

The ten of them squeezed and swayed together, while Dog went bounding around their ankles, yapping. Aziraphale apologised a few times out of habit – and Crowley snuck a kiss to his cheek when he had the opportunity – but soon enough, everyone fell back, laughing, souls aglow, all twice as merry as before.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, with his joy radiating across the whole lawn like a happy space heater. “Well! We’d best be off. Otherwise we’ll end up staying all night.”

“Hey, you _could_ stay all night,” Anathema smiled.

“Oh, thank you, that’s sweet of you to offer – but no, there’s really no need,” Aziraphale said, while Crowley felt a pang of want waft off him.

“The pair of us are staying,” Tracy said, gesturing at herself and Shadwell.

“We are?” Shadwell coughed.

“Don’t be silly, love. We’d be mad to try and putter back to London after dark. Almost our bedtimes, now, in any case.”

“There’s more than enough room,” Anathema insisted, looking kindly from Aziraphale to Crowley and back. “It’s really no trouble. There’s a spare mattress.” Newt slung an arm over her shoulders, beaming, standing by Anathema’s offer.

“Ah, no, no, we really shouldn’t...” Aziraphale turned his gaze to Crowley, “It _is_ terribly late... long drive...” His eyes turned round and pleading, “Mustn’t keep anyone busy...”

Crowley opened his mouth. Rather than address Aziraphale, he looked at Anathema. “Do you do breakfast?”

Anathema’s eyes gleamed. “Full English, with the sausages, eggs, and buttered toast, right? And tea?”

Crowley grinned wildly, feeling so much glee rolling off Aziraphale it was like standing next to a six-foot disco ball. “One night can’t hurt, can it, angel? We could... hm, share a bed. Stay until the morning.”

“Oh, all _right_,” Aziraphale said, in theatrical defeat. “But only because you insist, you old fiend,” he added to Crowley.

Crowley bumped him with a hip, which made Aziraphale yap, then stare, then bump him right back. Crowley smirked, catching Anathema’s eyes. None of this nonsense had gotten past her. Her eyes seemed to water with the effort of not rolling them.

By the time Crowley looked around, he realised the kids and the dog had gone back to playing, and they would go on playing until there was no light left to see by.

After all the almost-goodbyes, and Crowley’s melancholy thoughts on fading sunsets at the end of days he never wanted to end, there was no goodbye, and the day went on long after dark.

Some afternoons were just timeless like that.

Some.

The ones spent doing something lovely, with somebody special.

  


· · · **♡** · · ·

  


Crowley and Aziraphale spent the night enfolded in each other’s arms, on a stripy white-and-blue mattress on the floorboards in a private little room in the upstairs eastern side of Jasmine Cottage. It was an almost-empty room, as nobody lived there, but what _did_ live there were books, a dusty lampshade on the floor, and a family of rock doves in the rafters. Not to mention such an aura of tranquility that neither of them even thought to perform a miracle to improve the room. It was already perfect.

They woke with feathers on the pillow and mid-morning sunlight streaming through a dirty window, the golden beam split into ribbons by their messy hair.

Crowley wrapped himself tighter around Aziraphale, breathing slowly against his neck. He kissed once, twice. Nuzzled.

Aziraphale smiled, kissing Crowley’s hand, then he curled his own hand into it, holding on, fingers intertwined.

No amount of delay, distraction, misdirection, denial, or outright lies could’ve made waking up like this a surprise, not for either of them. The moment they’d moved in together, one year and one day ago, they’d both known it was an eventuality, not a mere possibility.

The fact it happened here, in Tadfield, was quite the miracle, however.

But in the grand ineffable scheme of things – particularly for an angel and a demon who’d fallen in love with the world, with humanity, and, not least, with each other... what _was_ one more miracle, after all?

  


**{ the end }**

**Author's Note:**

> ☆ [reblog summary](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188618865715/now-who-is-in-the-mood-for-crowley-and-aziraphale)  
☆ [reblog fic](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188618480800/sunny-picnic-with-the-southern-pansy)
> 
> Thank you for reading!! [Here's all my other Crowley/Aziraphale fics!](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi)  
And if you wanna be kept updated when I post new stories (other ships: Dean/Cas, and soon Garak/Bashir) [theeeeen maybe subscribe here?](https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/) And we shall have many surprise parties of our own c:  
(As of October 27th 2019 I have [10 more completed fics](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/188516330315/if-i-post-all-the-completed-fics-in-my-drafts) with a word count totaling almost 300k to post in the 9 weeks before the end of the year?? And then my total word count will pass 3 million!!!!! AAAAaaah. Wish me luck?)  
Elmie x


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